Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Right Wingers HATE Tommy Douglas Movie

I want to tip my hat to the writers, director, actors, producers and technicians who produced the Tommy Douglas movie that was aired on CBC television earlier this week.

In a desperate attempt to discredit the film, certain persons are claiming that former Saskatchewan Premier Jimmy Gardiner was not fairly portrayed. Apparently, Mr. Gardiner was a tea-tottler and there was a scene in the film where he invites the reporters to come to his office and have a drink. This has angered some because they believe Mr. Gardiner was inaccurately portrayed as a drinker of alcoholic spirits. There was a further dramatization concerning the events of the Estevan Coal Miners strike - text was attributed to Mr. Gardiner which historically could not have occurred.

As a result, those who desperately do not want the film used for educational purposes are seething. They do not want any part of the history of Tommy Douglas taught in our schools. While I do have sympathy for the postion of the Gardiner family and other purist history buffs, I do not appreciate the enemies of public health care using this as a reason to distract us from the accomplishments of Tommy Douglas. This would clearly be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

If you want to kill medicare and reinstate 'for profit / free enterprise' healthcare, then you probably don't want any students learning about the struggle to implement Medicare.

It's not about historical purism. It's about constructing Gardiner as an evil foil for the angelic Tommy. It pisses me off to a certain extent to see an important figure in Canadian history get the crap kicked out of him in order to aid the plotline of a second-rate made-for-tv movie.

Fair ball. I think in retrospect, Minds Eye should have done a documentary. Dramatiztions, by their very nature, require fitting the story to the time available to tell it. Historical dramatizations can never hope to be totally accurate.

VisionTV, Canada’s multi-faith and multicultural television network, has produced a one-hour panel discussion program to accompany its broadcast of the controversial two-part miniseries Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story.

VisionTV is streaming the panel discussion in full on its Web site prior to broadcast. The program can be viewed here:http://www.visiontv.ca/Programs/Beyond_the_Controversy.html

Hosted and moderated by acclaimed broadcaster Valerie Pringle, Prairie Giant: Beyond the Controversy will air on Tuesday, Sept. 25 at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT and will repeat at 2 a.m. ET/11 p.m. PT, immediately following part one of VisionTV’s Prairie Giant broadcast.